a conversation with
Michael Eigen

In the first part of the event, Mike Eigen will give a talk on Glimmers: Cracks in Our Psyche, Bits of Life that Tickle Our Souls, and our Encounter with Self-Hate. Then, Aner Govrin and Sharon Ziv-Beiman will conduct a lively conversation with him on the topic and will invite the participants to be involved and present questions.

Aggression against the self or aggression turned inward has many functions and outcomes, processes that have been part of cosmic-human evolution as far back as we can see. Bion catches this thread and explores it in A Memoir of the Future,  an apt name for these movements of life. We will see if we can pick up this deep dynamic and move with it, touching, as Wittgenstein says, nooks and crannies of oblivion and birth. We will draw from several sources spanning various dimensions of our beings and say hello to ourselves in more welcoming ways. Suggested background readings will be helpful but not necessary as the discussion will have a life of its own.

Reading material sent to participants:

Henry Elkin, On Selfhood and the Development of Ego Structures in Infancy Psychoanalytic Review, 1972; Collected in The Origin of the Self: Collected Papers of Henry Elkin, edited by Loray Daws.

Wilfred R. Bion, A Memoir of the Future (1991), especially Chapter 17.

Michael Eigen, Fermenting Devils in Psychosis (Chapter 3, Image, Sense, Infinities and Everyday Life);